Who doesn't love a good DIY organizing project?! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's when something in my house just isn't working. Like my closet for instance. I LOVE our little house and I am so proud that I bought it by myself when I was single, but I underestimated how vital closet space is. Each bedroom in the house has one closet that is just short of 4 feet wide... except the master bedroom which has two 4 foot closets side by side...functional. AND THAT'S IT. No linen closet, coat closet, not one! Up until this point, we've stored anything extra in our "spare bedroom" aka the room that's door is always shut so no one can see how much crap we have. When the baby gets here, that room will be his or her room.. while this is exciting, it's a problem, lol.

So right now, Steven has one of the master closets and I have the other. I am supposed to fit all my hoodies, coats, long sleeve shirts, short sleeve, dresses, tank tops, jeans, sweats, shoes, purses, bags in a FOUR FOOT CLOSET. Impossible. I've lived in this house 3 and a half years and I've pretty much ignored this closet situation until now. Last year sometime I did add a second closet rod on the bottom half of the closet so I could hang more things like my jeans and bigger jackets, but thanks to my not so impressive handy woman skills I installed the rod about 6 inches too low... so my jeans are always dragging the ground, making it extremely annoying to make myself hang up my clothes down there.

Now that we are expecting baby #2 I've decided the entire house's storage situation needs to be dealt with permanently. So I'm slowly working my way from room to room. This week after hours of searching online for some type of solution for just the bottom of my closet, I finally found a shelf/cubby system on Amazon that I thought might just do it. Forty bucks and two day shipping and VOILA! Time to do some damage.

So I'm horrible about being so excited to start a project that I dive straight in and forget to take a before picture... but I think I pretty much explained what the bottom of the closet looked like. Crowded, dysfunctional, pants hanging crooked off hangers and dragging the floor, piles of clothes stuffed in the corners because that's what my husband does with clothes that I leave in the floor or next to the bed :). He's a real problem solver lol. The closet annoys me so badly that I've stopped doing any more laundry than one load at a time even when my hamper is full (always) because I don't want to have to hang things up and look at the stupid closet situation, lol pathetic.

I am proud to say that after about 30 minutes of building the shelf, another 15 minutes to raise up the hanging rod about 6 inches, and 20 minutes to fold and reassemble where everything goes, bippety boppety boo it is DONE!!

One project down, probably 35 to go, but I'm making progress! Next will be adding more shelves and hanging room in our laundry room so I can store seasonal decorations and clothes in there. Man what a set up, lol. That project will require help from my husband so I'm sure he will be thrilled ;). His solution to all of this is "How about you just get rid of your stuff?" Yeah okay Steve. As if the 10 bags I've already donated aren't enough!! That's a rant for another blog ;)
If you have any other tips for storage in an extremely limited space, HIT. ME. UP.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!!

Feeling Thankful

Hey everyone!

With Thanksgiving approaching this week, it's got me in an extra festive thankful mood, which is never a bad thing. To name a few, I think I'm definitely most thankful for my husband, my kid(s) ;), dependable jobs, and always my family even though we aren't much for size anymore.
I can remember years when I was pregnant with Raelee and when she was young when I didn't have an extra dime to my name for Christmas shopping even just for her. It wasn't the worst possible situation to be in of course, but it's disheartening when all you want is to give your child everything in the world. I'm very thankful for how far we've come in the last seven years.

So normally I'm a pretty hardcore Black Friday shopper. I look forward to it ALL year. I scope out all the sales and decide what is most worth sitting in line for and I commit to that. Last year it was a $300 Smart TV from Walmart. You can't beat the electronic sales that go on during Black Friday. It even had my husband excited for it and anyone close to him knows he hates crowds, waiting in lines, and shopping, lol. This year I have a few items on my list, but I think I'm going to stick to buying online for the most part, just because being pregnant and not knowing how I will feel from day to day, I don't think waiting in line for a few hours sounds like a great idea. Friday morning I plan to leisurely shop all the sales at normal people shopping time just for fun and to gather any good Christmas gifts I can. Or let's be honest I might just buy for myself... but I am going to try my hardest NOT to. 'Tis better to GIVE than to RECEIVE Kellie!!

I got my Christmas tree up last week because it snowed so of course you just want to sit inside and watch the snow fall with the glow of the Christmas tree on!! I couldn't help it. I love Thanksgiving just as much as anyone but the tree had to happen. I unknowingly married the Grinch so he walks in the house while Rae and I are putting the ribbon on the tree and he was like "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" Get on board Scrooge, it's happening. Plus, it's one less thing I have on my to-do list this month. And it provides a night light for the 3 times a night I have to a. get up and eat a snack or b. go to the bathroom thanks to my pregnant body bladder. It's really a win win.

I have to say what I'm most thankful for this week is Thanksgiving break! Sometimes I dislike school breaks because that means my child is home and I have to entertain her when I have a million other things to do on top of work, but I'm realizing more lately that it means I don't have to get out and take her to school when it's freezing and I'm tired. AND as an added bonus, we don't have activities like dance this week either so we get a whole lotta free time that we aren't used to! Halleluuuuujah for that!!

What's your favorite part about Thanksgiving? Other than the usual "being with family." I love hearing the funny or outside the box things we all look forward to!

If you made it to the end, thanks for reading :) and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

A season of change

Hey everyone! Long time, no blog, right? 😬 I wasn’t lying when I said I’m a bit of an under achiever, lol. A lot has changed in the last two years. After working as a trainer in a gym for a year, we took a leap of faith and opened my own on our property. Literally my DREAM!! It’s been SO much fun. Some of the best parts of it have been that I can wear whatever I want, set my own hours, take off when I want, and be home if Raelee needs me because I’m only about 10 feet away from our house! I had no idea God would give me such an incredible calling and the most loyal clients everrrr! So as a lot of you may know, Raelee is now in first grade (yes I know I’m shocked we made it through that first pre-k year 🤣). It’s literally taken us two years to get SOME of this school stuff down. This is the area in my life that really hasn’t changed, haha. I’m still rollin’ up to the school in sweats, no makeup, sloppy hair, just trying to shove her through the door before 8:05. For any other moms whose kids will be going into first grade next year, you may want to prep them for all the change that comes with it. I hear about it DAILY. “All we do is WORK!” “We only get like 2 minutes for lunch mommy!!” “I have to do SO many papers!!” Man it’s rough being 6. So yeah don’t worry, I still have the same dramatic daughter and I don’t think she will ever change. We’ve learned to live with it 😆. Something else that’s been exciting this year is that after months of attempted bribery, begging, pleading, guilting conversations with my husband, we’re finally having a baby!!! 😂 Y’all he’s an only child so he was kind of terrified, but I managed to get my way once again 😈. I think he might leave me if we have another girl... but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I don’t know why he thinks having a boy would be so much better. I mean sure he has to sit through all Raelee’s home concerts in her pajamas singing and dancing to JoJo or some other random YouTube kids, but he’s gotten pretty good at it. She even makes him score her handstands in the living room on a scale from 1-10. Who needs to watch football or have time to yourself when you could be witnessing a two and a half second handstand you’ve seen 40 other times? For everyone who’s asked, I’m not swaying one way or the other as far as if I want a boy or a girl. I know God will give us exactly what we need so I’m just excited for all of it! We find out what we’re having on November 30th, baby cooperation willing, and I am counting down the days!!! It’s all over from there. All my money will be spent on tiny clothes, shoes, and decor for his or her room. 😍 The last month and a half has been challenging to say the least. I found out I was pregnant on September 14th and about two weeks after that the sickness hit HARD. Every free moment I had was spent on the couch or in bed sleeping just to escape the nausea. I honestly wasn’t sure how I was going to make it. Thank goodness for my husband because I didn’t do any of my own laundry for at least a month. He kept up with it for me and Raelee both. 😭 Finally, after having my first doctor’s appointment around 10 weeks I was able to get some medicine to give me some relief. The past two weeks have me feeling like the sickness and horrible fatigue might be passing! Fingers crossed!!! Gah I just want to be able to make myself a meal without feeling like I could pass out! I definitely forgot how awful the first trimester can be. This baby better be freakin cute because I feel like giving it a spankin’ and it’s not even here yet!!! Lol So that’s the update. I’m sure all my clients are tired of hearing me whine about prego symptoms so this will be my new outlet 😜 Until next time!